


Fealty

by sternfleck



Series: Arcana Imperii [9]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (that's a tag?!), Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Branding, Burnplay, Chancellor Hux, Dominant Armitage Hux, Hux is the one with the lightsaber, I'm as surprised as you are, Lightsaber Used as a Sex Toy, M/M, Oaths & Vows, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Scarification, Submissive Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Title Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:16:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24963613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: The Chancellor and the Supreme Leader use an object of Hux’s affection to help them renew their vows.Based on “Duel of the Fates,” the leaked alternate script for Episode 9.For Kylux Positivity Week 2.0, Day 1. Prompts: "Chancellor/Supreme Leader" and "Power Dynamics."
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Arcana Imperii [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694788
Comments: 21
Kudos: 54
Collections: Kylux Positivity Week 2.0





	Fealty

**Author's Note:**

> Like the rest of the world, I’ve been in a strange frame of mind lately, so...this fic is a bit different from my usual. It’s barely edited, it lacks banter, and it’s not the slightest bit fun or funny. It's also darker than my other DotF fics...but still not that dark by Kylux standards.
> 
> Warning for Hux entertaining a brief thought of the future possibility of his wartime suicide as it occurs in the "canon" of the DotF script. He's horrified by the prospect, though, so it's not suicidal ideation as such. There's also one reference to the TLJ choking scene, but you can ignore that if you want.

"Without faith, you serve only yourself."  
\- Kylo's last words to Hux in the _Duel of the Fates_ script

\---

The sound of the saber’s ignition makes Hux shiver every time, more so when he’s the one pressing the button to ignite it. The rolling hum hits him in his bones, and the smell of ozone fills the empty throne room’s chilly air.

Arousal is Hux’s conditioned response to any lightsaber at this point, after years of watching Ren lay spectacular waste to Rebels and other villains on the battlefields of countless worlds. But Hux never gets such a thrill as when he holds a blazing lightsaber in his own hand, with Ren bent before the throne in reverent supplication at Hux’s feet.

This particular lightsaber is the Chancellor’s favourite of his collection. It’s white, like his uniform, like the silver in his hair that crowns him and shows his age. The blade is smooth and clean-looking, and it rises from its hilt in an uninterrupted column of plasma, with no crossguard elements necessary to stabilise it. Its hum is soft and sharp and insistent to the ear. It has a slim shape, pale and elegant. In short, it suits Hux.

Though Hux can never bleed a kyber crystal with the Force the way Ren can, Ren says the crystal inside this saber is becoming slowly attuned to Hux’s energy in some mysterious way. But then, Ren also says Hux is bonded with him in the Force, forever, in life and in death.

Ren, for a man of few words, says a lot of things. Some are ridiculous, some are brilliant. Some—the best of Ren’s words—make Hux feel like he could burst into a nova, blinding and bright.

“I pledge myself to you,” is what Ren says now, lifting his eyes to Hux’s.

This is one of Ren’s better statements. Hux likes it so much he has Ren repeat it every year, on the anniversary of Hux’s accession to the Chancellorship. His _coronation_ , as he calls it in his head, though he’s meant to be a military dictator, not a monarch. In his childhood fantasies, Hux had no doubt he would one day become the Galaxy’s Emperor. The reality turned out differently, but at times like this, with Ren blinking up at him, Hux can’t think of any fantasy that could surpass the glory of his actual life. 

“What is your pledge?”

Hux tries to make his voice cold but fair. His lines are pre-negotiated, honed over the years to suit both their tastes. Ren’s are too, though Ren tends to ramble and depart from the script, especially after the lightsaber does its work on his skin.

Ren hesitates. The white light of the saber shivers across his face. With a coarse dark robe laid loosely over his shoulders, with his hair washed and his scar anointed with flecks of gold, Ren is beautiful tonight in a way that hits Hux in the depths of his gut and makes him want to reach out, to touch, to give Ren his hand.

Hux steadies his grip on the saber, keeping it vertical before his face. They both have their roles to play in this ritual, where Ren is vassal and Hux is sovereign. Hux _could_ extinguish the saber and drop to his knees and kiss Ren’s face until his lips were gold-flecked too—but that would not serve to advance this ritual, which is meant to re-affirm the agreement they have made to each other as supreme administrators of the First Order’s Empire. 

“I serve you, Chancellor. I bring you the stars. To our Empire, I swear all that I am. I give you my strength and my loyalty.”

Ren’s liquid eyes, his soft mouth, as soft as it was when he was a young knight with a hopeless crush. Or, not so hopeless, Hux corrects himself. Ren has gotten everything he wanted in life. And, in some roundabout way Ren would probably explain with the Force, so has Hux.

Hux extends an ungloved hand and strokes the bare pad of his thumb slowly over Ren’s lower lip. Ren’s eyes shut, his mouth falling open. The air around them is thick with the stormy smell of Hux’s blade, and the light is eerie over both of them, a starry light like the skies they rule.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux whispers, just loudly enough that the words are audible over the sound of humming plasma. “I grant you the right to serve me, and I accept your service with respect. You alone have this privilege. I give it to no one else.”

He moves his hand to Ren’s cheek, stroking the edge of his scar. The gilt paint in the cleft of the scar smudges, and Hux wipes his finger on Ren’s dark eyebrow, leaving it freckled with starry gold.

When Ren opens his eyes, they’re filled with a devotion that burns. On any other day, Hux would throw out a snide remark to turn that devotion bitter and unserious. But this is the date of Hux’s coronation five years ago, and so this is the one day of the year when Ren’s dangerous attachment is not only allowed but required and encouraged.

Hux puts his finger to Ren’s warm mouth again, just to gild it and heighten his beauty. But he pulls his hand away, back to the hilt of the humming saber, as Ren speaks the next words of his vow.

“Our Empire stands on our loyalty to each other. What is right for you is right for me. I protect you. I will never do you harm. As the Force commands of me, I stand between you and all who would place you in danger.”

This is a relic of the pledge Ren offered to Hux after the Battle of Crait, to make amends. There’s some Force-ritual—Hux doesn’t understand it, or care to—that Ren offered to perform to prevent himself from threatening Hux in the future. According to Ren, if he harms Hux now, the Force will inflict upon him the same harm in return. This all strikes Hux as implausible and quaint—they’re men of war, after all, and can’t be expected to treat each other gently. Moreover, Hux has never seen what’s wrong with old-fashioned self-control when it comes to holding back from choking one’s life partner, but then, Hux was the one who drew his blaster on Ren in Snoke’s throne room all those years ago, when he was certain that Kylo was gone, that his body would wake and turn to Hux with eyes filled with Ben Solo’s terrible Light.

Ren’s eyes now are darker than they should be, even with the thrumming light of the saber drenching his face in white. If Hux moved his boot forward to where Ren’s robes cover his lap, he knows he’d find Ren hard and eager. With the slightest encouragement, Ren would interrupt their ritual by rutting against Hux’s boot. He’s desperate already, even though Hux hasn’t even brought his lightsaber close to Ren’s skin. It tempts Hux, the promise of Ren’s needy cries, the mess he’d make against the polished leather.

Hux, too, is already hot from Ren’s submissive words. But they’re in the midst of renewing their vows. This isn’t the time to think with his cock.

“As long as our Empire stands,” says Hux, “I accept your sworn devotion in peace and in war. The military elements at my command shall act only in the service of our mutual glory. My soldiers and my weapons shall be yours, as your strength with the Force is mine.”

The last part isn’t _true_ , not exactly, but it’s still a pleasant thought. 

Hux passes the lightsaber to his left hand, and back to his right. It’s not as heavy in the hand as Ren’s. Perhaps that’s an engineering feature, or perhaps Ren’s Force-strength gives his saber’s crystal a heft that Hux’s can never match. Ren doesn’t seem to mind, though. The awe on his face is plain as his eyes follow the shifting glow of the blade.

Hux knows better than anyone how the anticipation of pain can be more of a threat than the pain itself. But for the Supreme Leader—shameless masochist—the pain will serve as the reward for his focused attention. The reward for his loyalty. For his love.

“Our bond is what brings us victory,” says Ren, voice rough. “We wouldn’t have any of this without what we give to each other.”

Hux frowns. The Supreme Leader is off-script, his words less formal, more genuine.

“Ren,” he cautions him lightly.

Ren shifts, regains his composure, adjusts his knees on the hard stone of the dais below the throne. He’ll have bruises tomorrow, but then, Ren generally does, unless he’s just returned from a long mission away from Coruscant. His leggings always wear out first at the knees.

“My oath is sacred before the Force and in accordance with Imperial law.” Ren swallows, lets his lips hang parted for a moment before continuing. “Were I ever to break this oath and fail to protect you and our Empire, it would be my final end.”

Here is the part of the ceremony that makes Hux most uneasy. It disturbs him to think of Ren failing in his task of preserving their Imperial victories. But this is war. Losses happen. Hux _shouldn’t_ have such an attachment to one mortal man. It’s unreasonable, a personal weakness. When Ren speaks of his own death—which is _inevitable_ , Ren is _human_ , there’s no such thing as immortality, even for a man who can hold every star under his command—Hux feels unsteady, as though he’s resting all his weight on something that could collapse and send him falling. 

Hux’s own vows contain a counterpart to this morbid line of Ren’s. He speaks it quickly and deliberately, to drown out his thoughts.

“Your allegiance is my strength. Your loyalty is my highest glory. You have given me the Empire we preserve. It is my life. I live as our Empire endures. If it were ever to fall, I would perish with it, and meet my fate with honour.”

Hux imagines it, aware that Ren can see his thoughts clear as a holo. Final defeat—the Galaxy in chaos, the Capitol in ruins. Enemies behind every palace door. Coruscant in Rebel flames, the war over, their life’s work lost. A narrowing array of options for the vanquished: a poison pill between Hux’s teeth, a blaster at his lips, or perhaps one of those terrible injections they give sometimes to prisoners unfit for execution in the public sphere. Or Ren’s hands, Ren’s Force, if Ren could bring himself to do it. If their war were lost, Hux would offer no surrender—except to Ren.

Ren’s eyes widen at the thought he sees in Hux’s mind. When Ren shakes his head hastily— _no, never, Hux, you’ll_ never _have to_ —the blade of Hux’s lightsaber reflects in Ren’s dark pupils, distorted into an arc, like a vision seen in one of the crystal spheres the Supreme Leader uses to divine the future. 

The air in the throne room is too cold. Even with a long cloak over his uniform, Hux shivers.

But this line of thinking is foolish. Hux doesn’t need to waste worry on worst-case scenarios. Ren is right. Such a defeat could never happen for the First Order’s Empire. It’s impossible. Still, Hux has always had plans even for impossible courses of history. That’s how he’s survived.

In his boyhood, Hux’s own survival meant more to him than anything. He killed to save his own life, and swore allegiance to no one, not even his own blood. But this oath to Ren is his oath as a man. An oath of absolute consequences. Their Empire cannot hold unless they hold to one another. Hux’s own life matters less to him now than the survival of this new Galaxy they’ve built together.

Without the First Order’s Empire, there is no Chancellor Hux, no Supreme Leader Ren. Without their bond to one another, there is no First Order, no Empire. Hux is older now, and he lives for more than himself. If he—or Ren—should ever waver in their allegiances, death will part them from each other forever.

“You’d meet your fate with honour,” Ren echoes, eyes still shining. “Not faith? You should have faith in the righteousness of our cause. Without faith, you cut yourself off from the source of our power. The Force has willed our triumph over the Galaxy. It’s the will of the Force that you should be my Chancellor and command our Empire.”

“With faith, then,” he says. But he has no faith in the Force or its mysterious will. When Hux wakes in the night from uneasy dreams of a war-torn future, he doesn’t pray. He reaches for Ren at his side in the dark, and buries himself in Ren’s arms. Whatever Ren wants to tell himself, it’s not the Force that protects their Empire. Ren’s strength and loyalty are what keep their adversaries at bay.

Hux notices now how dry his mouth is, how his thighs ache from the sight of Ren bowed before him in submission. Hux’s arms ache, too, though the hilt of the lightsaber is easy to hold. Perhaps Ren is right about the energies flowing through his saber, even if Hux can’t tell they’re there.

“Your faith is not in vain,” murmurs Ren. “Our enemies will never win. The Force is with us and our Empire. Trust in the Dark Side. Trust me.”

Hux has never been inclined towards trust. But fear and doubt don’t seem to matter when Ren leans forward under the sweep of shining plasma. He nuzzles the unscarred side of his face along Hux’s thigh, and kisses the inside of it over his jodhpurs. Hux’s knees shake. He has to lift the humming blade of his lightsaber high to keep from carelessly twitching it too close to Ren’s back, his hair.

“You rogue,” Hux hisses, even as his hips push forward into Ren’s touch. “Not now. After.”

“Want you,” Ren mumbles between kisses. He moves up to the front of Hux’s jodhpurs, where Hux’s cock swells with every brush of Ren’s big nose, every press of his obscene mouth.

“You want me to place my mark on you,” Hux says, commanding, the way Ren likes. “So your very skin shows how you submit to me like any other vassal of this Empire.”

Ren’s cheeks colour at Hux’s words. “You don’t do this with other vassals,” he points out. “I’m the only one. I’m the one who gives you what you need.”

“Yes, yes, Supreme Leader, you’re much better than all the others.” Hux sighs his impatience, lets his free hand trail through Ren’s hair. “No one else could ever compare. Now. Be good. No more teasing me while I have a deadly weapon above your neck.”

Ren’s hair is thick and silky when Hux laces his hand through it. There’s something terribly right about the way Ren pushes his bowed head up into his touch, the way Ren’s long gold-dusted lashes flutter against Hux’s palm when Hux cups his face.

This, above all, is the great secret that makes their regime effective. The Supreme Leader on his knees, and Hux, above him, bathed in kyber light.

“Show me what you want,” Hux offers, thumb on Ren’s lip. He wipes the smudge of gold away, soft as a kiss.

Through his nose, Ren breathes deep. Once, twice. He lifts his hands to his shoulders, pushes them back, and sheds his robe. 

It would be hyperbole for Hux to say the sight of Ren’s scarred and muscled body makes him go weak at the knees. An exaggeration. But not by much.

There are many things about Ren that Hux has had to get used to over the years. His mind has made space for Ren’s telepathy, and his hole has made space for Ren’s cock, which was far too big for Hux to take inside him without many patient nights of preparation in their _Finalizer_ days. He’s gotten used to Ren’s spiritual gifts, and gained a grudging respect for the certain military advantages they bring. 

But Hux has never gotten used to Ren as a physical presence, and never will. Ren’s body is simply too arresting, too sculpted, too broad and strong and dotted with a dizzying sprinkle of scars and dark moles. His beauty draws Hux’s eyes and holds them there, somewhere in the region of Ren’s plush chest. Ren snorts, smug, at the naked lust on his Chancellor’s face.

“All these years,” Ren teases. He tosses his hair back and digs his fingertips roughly into his thick pectorals. “You still look at me like I’m a pinup for the ‘troopers.”

The stormtroopers aren’t supposed to have images of pinups. They’re supposed to decorate their barracks with state-sanctioned propaganda, cards and holos of the Supreme Leader and Chancellor. But Ren’s pose has Hux considering some alternative propaganda options he could produce with the Supreme Leader for private use. He shelves this thought for later, knowing Ren has seen it in his mind and won’t let him forget.

Under the robe, Ren’s body is entirely bare. If the Supreme Leader even owns underwear, Hux has never seen Ren wear it. Ren’s heavy cock points up towards his stomach, red and lewd and full, all because Hux has allowed Ren to kiss his uniformed thighs and offer loyalty until death.

It’s a heady thought, to face this physical evidence of what his authority does to Ren. What’s more, Hux can’t help but think of the way that thick cock feels inside him. His hole aches at the thought, muscles twitching up to his spine. Hux has plenty of toys to fill him on Ren’s long trips away, but nothing else ever takes him apart quite like Ren’s messy thrusts, his wet snarling breath on Hux’s nape when he’s holding Hux down. When Ren is inside him, it’s like Hux was unfinished before, and now is complete.

Hux blushes hot. He twists his lightsaber through the air with a resonant flourish to distract from any thoughts he might have projected.

“You must be all too ready for this,” he says crisply to Ren. “Look at you, practically dripping on the throne room floor. Get on your hands and knees.”

“Yes, Chancellor.” Ren’s voice has a teasing edge to it, but his words still make Hux want Ren’s mouth, his touch, everything. Ren saying _Chancellor_ when he’s on all fours with his cock bobbing and his balls heavy and his shapely arse on display with that neat parade of burn scars above it...Ren could say _Emperor_ and even that couldn’t bring Hux any more pleasure than this. 

Not that Hux would object. That’s another idea for them to play around with, later. But this is no time for distraction.

Hux sinks to his knees beside Ren. With his every motion, the saber buzzes, ominous and thrilling. He raises it above Ren’s bare back, letting the light give him a closer view of the row of short scars on Ren’s left flank. Four of them, for four years of their Empire. Tonight’s scar will be the fifth.

The earlier scars are rough at the edges, messier than the new ones. In those years, Hux was still learning his art. Ren showed him the basic saber forms between rough kisses up against the wall in the training gym, the smell of ozone heavy in the air. But each of Ren’s lessons ended quickly with Hux underneath him, helpless and whining, as Ren praised Hux’s amateur technique and worked Hux’s aching cock. So Hux can’t be faulted for some imprecision. He’s practically self-taught. 

He pets the surface of the scars he’s given Ren. The raised lines, the silky skin. Ren shivers, glances back at Hux from under his spill of dark hair. His eyes are heavy, intense.

“Please,” Ren mouths, lips moving inaudibly. It’s a word that never fails to make Hux want him all the more. His sweet compliance, in spite of his strength and his rank in the Order. Hux tangles his free hand in Ren’s hair and tugs hard. Ren’s cock twitches in time with his moan.

“Finish your oath.” Hux makes his voice harder and colder than these feelings welling up in his chest. “Tell me.”

Ren inhales. A deep breath that expands his ribcage and makes the muscles over it ripple. His eyes are on Hux’s. The room’s cold air smells like a storm. Hux trails his fingers down to Ren’s nape, touching him almost clinically, thumbing at the side of his neck until Ren’s eyes fall shut and he speaks.

“I am the Supreme Leader of the First Order.” His voice is rough at the edges and too small to match his words. “I serve the Dark Side of the Force, embodied in your passion and your cruelty. I am your knight, sworn to you. Honour me with your mark, my Chancellor. With all my power, I am yours to command.”

Hux swallows, steadies himself. No matter how many times Ren says it, Hux never gets tired of this. He’s fortunate to have his practiced lines to follow, or he’d be speechless, staring at Ren, lost in the richness of that promise.

“I mark you as my knight,” Hux whispers. “This scar will be an assurance of my loyalty. I am your Chancellor, Supreme Leader. I match your fealty with my own.”

Before he can think too hard about what he’s just said, or why the act of declaring it makes him ache for Ren to kiss him, Hux carefully brings the lightsaber down to hover just above Ren’s back. He sweeps it over Ren’s flank in a slow first pass, to sterilise the skin where Ren will receive his new scar.

Ren shivers again, bracing his broad hands on the stone dais for stability. He’s broadcasting into the Force. His emotions pour into Hux’s head. Eager need threaded with the smallest thrill of apprehension. It makes Hux want to put his hands on Ren’s back to steady Ren, to soothe him, to show gratitude for his submission.

But Ren doesn’t need that. He doesn’t even want it, and Hux is no good at that sort of thing anyway. They don’t soothe one another. They give each other pain, and scorn, and enough Dark Side passion to build an Empire upon.

It’s with passion that Hux brings the thrumming edge of his lightsaber down against Ren’s skin, holding it there as it sparks and buzzes and burns a line into Ren’s flesh to match the others. When Ren gasps and bucks into the shock of the cut, his pain hits Hux through the Force as a wave of sadistic pleasure.

Hux clenches his teeth against it, aching in his chest at the way Ren hisses through the pain. Ren is never more beautiful than like this, dripping all over the throne room floor, like he could come untouched just from being hurt. With heaving breaths, Ren arches his back, lowers himself clumsily onto his elbows with his buttocks in the air, like he wants Hux to burn him again.

But Hux is patient. The pain from a burn comes later, after the first white-hot seconds of overwhelm. Ren snuffles, presses his forehead to the stone floor between his clenched hands. He could be muting his pain with his Force powers, but he isn’t. He’s letting it flow through him and take him apart, for Hux.

Just as when he began their ritual, Hux holds his saber vertical before his face. He flicks his thumb over the button to power it off, and the blade rushes back into the hilt with a hiss. Hux blinks, his eyes adjusting to the new dark and quiet. The only sound is Ren’s breathing, rough and wrecked and wonderful.

When Hux puts his hand in Ren’s hair again, tugging his face up from the floor to check on him, Ren whines. His brow is furrowed, soft mouth open, eyes shut and streaming tears.

“So good,” is all he says. Then, quieter, “Hux.”

“Ren,” says Hux gently. “Well done.”

Ren gives a half-laugh that sounds more like a sob. “You sound like I’m one of your soldiers,” he manages, as he sits up halfway. He rolls his shoulders, shakes the tangled hair away from his wet face. His cheeks are pink, and his forehead bears the impression of the stone floor.

“Let me see.” Hux leans towards him again. “Come here. I’ll bandage it.”

“Admire your work, Chancellor.” Ren shifts, showing Hux his back. He’s still shaky, taking deep breaths. His skin is filmed with sweat.

The burn looks good, straight and even in size to the others. It’s too early to tell, but Hux wouldn’t be surprised if this were the neatest yet. From inside the pocket of his cloak, Hux retrieves a dressing for the wound. Black bandage, no bacta, only a simple disinfectant. Nothing to keep it from healing into a smooth, pink scar.

Hux’s vision dims for a moment. Pressure in his head. Ren’s looking through his eyes to see what his new scar looks like. From Ren, Hux senses approval, along with more throbbing pain, and Ren’s pleasure at it. Then Ren leaves his mind, and stares at Hux with dark eyes while Hux applies the bandage. He winces at the friction against the burn, but it’s a wince that makes his cock jump. Again, Hux is struck with the desire to have Ren inside him...but that’s not what Ren is best for right now, when he’s high off his own pain and looking almost sleepy with the bliss of it.

What Ren wants after their ritual is what Ren always wants—to put his head in Hux’s lap and choke on Hux’s cock while Hux plays with his hair. So Hux rises, back to the throne. He’s sorry to abandon his lightsaber hilt, but it’s a safety hazard to leave it on the arm of the throne, where it could ignite. So he rests it on the dais below.

Ren shuffles close on his knees to drape his upper body over Hux’s thighs. His sweat-soaked hair covers his face, and he doesn’t look up at Hux as he tugs Hux’s jodhpurs and underwear down, his big hands trembling. He noses at Hux’s thighs, so assured and tender that it’s a struggle for Hux to remember this is Ren’s aftercare, not just an ordinary day in the Order Capitol. Hux opens his legs and allows Ren between them, sitting at the edge of the throne and leaning back.

He’s not sure what to say. Typically, he would tease Ren, would say something humiliating about the Supreme Leader’s cockslut mouth. But instead his head is full of the gleam of his saber searing into Ren’s flesh, and the way Ren bent to receive it. As Ren nips at his inner thighs with sharp teeth, Hux tries to come up with some praise, at least—Ren likes praise as much as he likes humiliation—but when Ren’s wet lips close around Hux’s cock head, all he can think of are his promises to Ren, his vows.

He tangles his hands in Ren’s hair and keeps his hips still, letting Ren do what he wants with that talented mouth. Hux won’t take long to come. He’s too aroused at the mere memory of Ren’s oath of service. Ren’s technique tonight is clumsy, hungry, wet enough that his mouth makes filthy noises as he licks and sucks.

When Ren takes him into his hot throat, Hux can feel blood pulsing, Ren’s or his own. The flutter of Ren’s throat muscles, the slick long press of his tongue to the underside of Hux’s cock...then Ren pulls off to lick around the foreskin with the broad tip of his tongue, and Hux moans weakly, echoing off the throne room’s stone walls. Ren echoes it with his own moan, making his mouth vibrate around Hux’s cock.

Hux can’t hold back a curse, fisting one hand tighter in Ren’s hair and bringing his other hand to his mouth to bite at his own knuckles. His skin tastes like ozone from his lightsaber, and he’s sure he’s getting gold leaf on his lips from where his hands have touched Ren’s decorated face.

But Ren still isn’t looking at him. His face is downturned and his hair is a thick curtain brushing over Hux’s thighs and hips and belly. His mouth is diligent, kissing down the underside of Hux’s cock, licking it everywhere, teasing. Somehow Ren is making it last, even though Hux is so hard he could come just thinking about the way Ren’s hands are so tight on his thighs he’ll be bruised in the morning.

Hux bites his own fingers instead. But the pain only mingles with his pleasure and Ren’s projected feelings. He’s falling closer to the edge by the second, images in his head of his saber, of the power of wielding it over Ren, when Ren’s lightsaber has conquered worlds for the First Order.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux hisses, eyes fluttering shut and then wide open. Ren’s mouth feels so kriffing good, too good for Hux to even speak. But Hux has to make sure Ren _knows_ that they are the two most powerful individuals in the Galaxy. Ren goes mindless sometimes when he’s on his knees, lost to pleasure. He knows his place with Hux, but sometimes Hux wonders if Ren forgets his role above every other sentient being on every planet. He should remember. He should know his own power. 

“Supreme Leader, our Empire, you’ve conquered every— _ahh_ —please, yes, _thank you_ —”

Ren’s nose at the base of his cock, Hux’s cock in Ren’s tight throat, with Ren bobbing his head for a hot, slick friction that builds in Hux like a winding spring. His fingers in Ren’s hair clench tight with every pass of the Supreme Leader’s mouth. Ren, _his_ Supreme Leader, whose presence flashes across Hux’s mind like a burning shadow, reading Hux’s thoughts as Hux falls desperately apart. 

For the first time since he put his mouth on Hux, Ren lifts his head and lets his his blown-black eyes meet Hux’s. Torturously, he pulls off of Hux’s cock.

Ren’s lips are swollen like he’s been punched in the mouth. His tears have washed the gilded makeup out of the crevice of his scar, down his cheeks, a wet Galaxy of little golden stars.

“I love you,” Ren says.

This is absolutely not part of their script of vows. This is the sort of thing that would usually make Hux shut down a scene and avoid Ren’s company for days. Ren _knows_ this. But Hux is too close, already over the edge, and Ren says so many worthless foolish words but tonight Ren is honest. Tonight Hux believes, without fear or doubt. 

Hux comes, hard. He paints Ren’s gilded face with ropes of white, with only Ren’s hand around him to guide him through. The sight of the first spurt on Ren’s brow makes Hux fall back hard against the throne, muscles taut, eyes shut tight. He spasms again and again, all over Ren’s pretty face, his lips, his hair.

In the silent stillness after, there’s a strange new pressure on Hux’s ankle, and his calf, and both of Ren’s hands on one of his thighs now, but Hux is too far gone to attend to it. It’s only after many harsh long breaths that he can open his eyes. When he opens them, Ren is in the midst of his own orgasm, rutting against the shaft of Hux’s boot.

His wrecked, spectacular face contorts in shameless pleasure as he grips Hux’s thigh far too tight. Ren makes a sound as he comes, a sharp exhalation through that big nose of his. It’s so earnest and undone that it makes Hux’s softening cock twitch anew where it rests wet against his thigh.

Ren relaxes, spent, head on Hux’s lap. Hux runs his hands up Ren’s throat to cup his face, to look at him. Ren is still pressed against Hux’s leg, like he could wring another orgasm out of himself just by keeping close. He whines into Hux’s mouth when Hux bends to kiss him. Hux pulls away with gold leaf and hot come on his lips.

Five years. Marking off their Empire on Ren’s skin. For all his love of stability and order, Hux never thought of himself as a man who would apply those principles to a relationship with another living creature. Humans are unpredictable, Kylo Ren more so than most. And yet he’s found a fragile equilibrium with Ren.

The Supreme Leader, for reasons of his own, longs to serve. To serve Hux in particular. Ren blames the Force—something about Hux keeping him centred in the Dark Side—but Hux isn’t sure he believes that. There’s nothing spiritual about the way Ren clings to him, or Ren’s half-smile when Hux rubs the back of his neck in the way Ren likes. If their union is mystically ordained, Hux doesn’t want to know about it, just like he doesn’t want to know what Ren sees when he goes scrying in his crystals for possible futures.

Let the mysteries belong to Ren. Hux has always been too sure of his ideals to need Ren’s nebulous faith. Ren gives him service, and faith, and this terrible chaos called love, and of these, Hux honours him only for the first. Faith is unnecessary, and love—love belongs to other men in other lives. Love is for men who aren’t fortunate enough to have empires, Hux decides.

Yet, however many times Hux tries to deny it or push it away, that word comes back to his mind when he thinks of Ren. Not Ren's promises or his grand gifts, but the small things. His eccentric, mystic habits. The way he smells like sweat and temple ashes. His childlike joy and petulance, emotional echoes of an early life nothing like Hux's own youth.

Mostly, it's the solid fact of Ren. Ren at his knee, bent and present. Ren in his bed, there when Hux wakes in the night, loyal, there.

Ren leaves for his long missions, leaves Hux's bed cold. But Hux waits for Ren, and he always returns. The shared delight of Ren's return catches Hux by surprise every time. If this waiting is a type of faith—waiting for Ren to come back to Coruscant, to Hux—then the Chancellor is not so faithless after all. Ren will always return to him, as long as their Empire stretches to every edge of the Galaxy's bright disk of stars. As long as Hux reigns as Chancellor, he will wait, in faith, for Ren.

When Ren lifts his head from Hux's lap and rises to his feet at last, he picks up his coarse robe from the floor and uses it to wipe his face. He wipes Hux’s boot, too, cleaning every trace of his orgasm away from the polished leather. Careful of his bandaged burn, Ren drapes the robe back over his shoulders again, though it’s filthy now, streaked with white and gold.

There’s a lightness to Ren’s bearing that wasn’t there before, as though their ritual has burnt away the bitter weight of sorrow he carries. Perhaps he saw something in Hux's mind to bring him solace. Ren’s face is still somber and unsmiling, still scarred and intense, but his eyes have a certain peace in them when Hux meets his gaze. Not a triumphant peace like their Imperial dominance, but a peace like dark water gone windless and still.

Hux tugs up his jodhpurs, takes up his lightsaber from the floor. He’d assumed they would return to their separate living quarters for the night, but now, with the way Ren’s looking down at him, Hux isn’t sure what the Supreme Leader expects.

“I’m going to the gardens,” Ren says, responding to Hux’s thoughts. “Come with me.”

The Capitol gardens are for entertaining dignitaries from vassal worlds, mostly. Sometimes young officers meet there in secret, to make plans and to kiss. But the Supreme Leader goes there once in a while at night, to sit among the plants from distant planets and stare out the glass roof at his sky full of stars. Another of Ren’s pointless habits, part of the constellation of strange indulgences that make him Ren. When Ren takes Hux to the night gardens, there’s always too much talk of the movements of nearby planets, the meaning of certain signs in the stars. Too much holding of hands and kissing, like a pastime for younger men with fewer standards to keep. Hux always enjoys their nights in the gardens, which means it's a self-indulgence he can't regularly allow.

At Hux’s hesitation, Ren furrows his brow, mouth threatening to drop into a pout.

“It’s an order, Chancellor.”

As if Hux has ever taken orders from Ren. As if he ever would.

“Don’t you need—water, after? Or food, or—?” It’s not insignificant, Ren’s saber burn, even for a man who has survived duels, bowcaster wounds, curses, insurgent attacks, and more.

Ren shakes his head. Wipes his mouth on the back of his arm before licking his lips. “Let’s go.”

It’s a mark of the seriousness of the occasion that Hux doesn’t scoff, or make the case to Ren for all the Order-related work they both should be doing. He only nods, and prepares to rise shakily to his feet. This unsteadiness of limb often troubles Hux after a strong orgasm. He tries to mask it as a shiver from the throne room's cold.

But Ren notices, and he offers his arm to help. His face is expressionless, but his eyes are filled with respect, and that same deep strange new peace.

Hux reaches out, unthinking, without hesitation. Eyes on Ren’s, Hux takes his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second (2nd!) Hux-gets-his-dick-sucked-on-the-throne fic. But who’s counting, right? Not Kylo...he’s done it far too many times to keep count.
> 
> I tend to despair at the task of research for fiction, but I had the best time reading historical fealty oaths for this one. There are some very homoerotic power games out there in the past, let me tell you. Inspiration taken from codes of service in European and Japanese feudalism. But of course it’s Star Wars, so there’s no historical accuracy here of any kind.
> 
> Talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sternfleck) or [tumblr](https://sternfleck.tumblr.com/).


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